


A Little Party Never Hurt No One

by Morpheus626



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25046527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Copying my synopsis from when I first posted this on Tumblr: quick mini synopsis (though I’m p sure several folks have written something like this for Ahkmenrah already so it might not need much description but): after months of begging, Larry finally agrees that out of all the museum residents, Ahkmenrah is the one he’ll allow out at night. Not for long, and not to wander too far away, but enough of a break to relieve the feeling of being cooped up in the museum.
Kudos: 13





	A Little Party Never Hurt No One

The clothes were unfamiliar and stiff, but the feeling drifted away as he walked down the street from the museum, for all the world looking like a museum docent leaving after a late shift at work. 

It was freeing, even if it was mildly terrifying. It wasn’t like he would even be going that far; Larry had made him promise only a bit into Central Park, and maybe down a few city blocks. 

People walked by him as if it was nothing, with no idea of who he was. Not that he expected them to know, considering how long it had been, how different the world had been. 

It made it easy to look and watch and take it all in, in a way he hadn’t been able to watching the city from the windows of the museum. The fall air was cold and crisp as he walked into the park, and he wished there was a way to bottle it, and bring it back inside with him. 

He resisted the urge, just barely, to rip off the shoes Larry had brought him and run barefoot in the grass. When was the last time he’d felt that, or sand, or anything natural and living beneath his feet? He settled for sitting on the grass, running his hands over it. 

“You all good?” a man had stopped on the path, and was watching him with a confused look. 

“I am fine. Simply enjoying the park,” he replied. 

The man shrugged and kept on, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He wasn’t sure why being questioned had made him so nervous, it wasn’t as if someone was going to come and drag him back to the museum. 

Still, it made him unsettled, so he got up and continued down the path, focusing on breathing in as much of the fresh air as he could. It was hard to see too many stars with all the lights, but looking up he could still find a few. 

He left the park near 85th, and headed down the road. He could practically hear Larry yelling about being too far away, but to be that far was intoxicating.There were sounds spilling out into the streets from the businesses nearby, and he was so curious to investigate them it ached. 

The bar he wandered into wasn’t horribly far from the park, and the sound of music enticed him. Larry hadn’t given him much of the currency currently being used, but there was enough to order a drink from the bartender who walked him through the ordering process with a sigh and a shake of her head. 

“Where you from anyway?” she asked as she set the glass in front of him, filled with a bright multicolored selection of liquors that she had assured him ‘would fuck him right up.’ 

“Egypt,” he replied as he sipped at the drink. It was sweet and sour and made his teeth ache, but the taste of alcohol was familiar, even if it wasn’t like the beer and wine he had drank back home. Not as strong, for one. 

“Far from home,” she remarked. “In town for any particular reason?” 

His heart pounded in his chest. He knew a great deal about modern life, but knowing and acting it were two separate things. 

“Just wanted to see somewhere new. I like traveling,” he said. “I was in Cambridge for awhile.” 

“When you were a kid?” she asked as she took another order and started the drink. 

“No,” he said. “Why do you ask that?” 

“Your accent,” she smirked. “You got that staying in the city for like a year?” 

He smiled. “It’s a long story.” 

“I hear a lot of those here. Why don’t you try me?” 

“You’d never believe me,” he said, sipping again at the drink. He couldn’t envision the damage the sugar and alcohol must do to a person, but he would be damned if he didn’t admit it was tasting good. 

“Dangerous thing, trying to be secretive with a smile that cute. Smile like that makes people want to get to know you. Gonna have to look meaner if you wanna keep your air of mystery,” she laughed as she handed off the finished drink. 

He felt a blush color his face, and pushed down the nerves. This was just a conversation. He could handle this. He might not ever see her again anyway, especially if Larry found out where he was. 

“You think I’m mysterious?” 

“Something about how you hold yourself,” she replied. “Way too…stately, for a guy bar-hopping. You’ve got a story somewhere in there.” 

“You’re right about that,” he sighed. “But…I’m sort of trying to forget about it, tonight. Trying to get a feel for this place instead.” 

“You got somewhere to be in the morning?” 

He nodded. “Have to be back to where I’m staying before sunrise.” 

“Hm. Well, there’s a few more bars you could go to yet tonight. Or, if you just wanna get drunk here and I can keep an eye on you, there’s a few more bands playing tonight,” she said. 

“Is it okay if I stay here? I’ll have more of these,” he said, lifting the now empty glass. 

She grinned and took it from him. “See the booth over there? Go settle in. I’ll keep an eye on ya, and keep ya in drinks.” 

He reached for the money in his pocket, but she shook her head.

“I can’t not repay your kindness…” 

“Inas,” she said. “My parents liked traveling too. Apparently I’m named for a friend they met while on their honeymoon.” 

“Thank you, Inas.” 

“Go sit,” she shook her head again, smiling. 

It was strange, being waited on in such a manner after so many years being away from anything like it. But it was nice all the same, with Inas bringing him a variety of ridiculously colorful drinks as the band played on. 

His head was swimming by the time the alarm on the watch Larry had given him went off. It meant he didn’t have a choice but to return, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to walk the city in the sun, stumbling with Inas by his side. He wanted to be her friend, to tell her all about the life he’d had before, so that she might tell him about hers. 

Instead, she helped him stand from the booth. “I’m sure that means you gotta go home. Let me get you a cab.” 

“I need money, hold on,” he slurred, fumbling with the bills in the pocket of the jeans that he was sure had no need to be so tight. “This has been so fun; I don’t want to go home. I should go back to the park.” 

“You said you had to be back before sunrise. That’s coming up awful quick, you cute souse. Let me help you get home.” 

“Can I come back?” he asked, letting his arms drape over her. She was warm, living. It was so wonderful, to feel life under his hands. 

“You can come back every night if you really want to, but I’m not gonna let you drink like this every night,” she laughed. “Think you might need a good night of sleep to recover.” 

“I’m sick of sleeping. I’m dead each morning, all I do is sleep,” he whined as he tried to keep up with her gentle pulling towards the door. 

“Man, your job must fuckin’ suck,” she said. “My apologies, but it’ll be worse if you show up late to it, right?” 

“Larry would be so mad,” he mumbled. “He didn’t even want me to go out tonight. He gave me everything to do it, but treated me like a child. I was a king!” 

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” she sighed as they stepped onto the dark street. “Look, I had the security guy call you a cab. How far away you gotta go?” 

“The museum,” he sighed.

“ The Natural History one nearby? Awful early to be there for your shift, but if that’s where you wanna go, fair enough,” she said. “It was nice getting to meet you….” 

“Ahkmenrah,” he replied as he wrapped her in a hug. 

“Well, that must have been a bitch to learn how to spell when you were little,” she laughed as she hugged him back. The cab pulled up to the curb, and she let him go, patting his back. “If you don’t get in too much trouble for being out tonight, then come back down here sometime, okay?” 

“I will, and I’ll bring Larry, and he won’t ever yell at me for wanting to leave the museum again. There is so much life out here, and music and-” he paused as he failed to remember the drinks she’d been bringing him. “What was I drinking?” 

“Last one was called an AMF,” she giggled. “You liked it?” 

“I love it,” he smiled. 

“Then you bring Larry back here for one someday, okay?” she said as she opened the cab door, and he sloppily followed her ministrations to get in the cab. 

“I will. Thank you for your kindness, Inas. I have not had such a wonderful time on my own, away from everyone else, in more years than you can possibly know,” he said, holding the door open. 

“You’re welcome, Ahkmenrah. Now go home, take some ibuprofen, drink a lot of water, and I’ll look forward to seeing you again in maybe a few weeks, okay?” 

He nodded, and let her close the cab door, his head flopping to the back of the seat as the cab driver listened to Inas tell him where to go. He watched the lights as the cab pulled away, and let his mind wander to a different reality, where he had a home other than the museum to return to, where he was living and would need the water she’d recommended in order to not feel terrible the next day. Where he could make the bar his go to for a night out, and get to know Inas better, learn to recognize the bands and eventually have favorite songs of theirs. 

Getting out of the cab on his own was difficult, but he managed it, and tossed the rest of the bills at the cab driver, who smiled but shook his head at the same time and looked confused as he pulled away. 

There was one door Larry had left unlocked for him, and he pulled it open and stepped inside just as the sun started to peek out over the horizon. 

“Jesus, look at you!” Larry was aghast. “Are you drunk?” 

“Are you?” he knew better than to ask that, but for some reason it was the funniest thing that he felt like he absolutely had to say back to him. 

“No, but you definitely are. How does that even work, is your liver even in you?” 

He shrugged. He hadn’t checked, and he wasn’t about to. It hardly mattered, if he could still go out and have a good time. 

“C’mon,” Larry dragged him down the halls. “God, this is like having a teenager. You smell like booze, and a bar and I really hope you can get hungover too, because…ugh.” 

“Larry, relax,” he moaned as they arrived at his exhibit, the statues watching curiously as they stumbled towards the table at the back that held his usual garb. “I had fun. I made a friend. Why is that bad?” 

“It-” Larry paused, and sighed. “It isn’t. I just worried, a bit. What if you hadn’t made it back before sunrise?” 

“Inas called me a cab,” he slurred as he shucked off the sweatshirt, then the t-shirt Larry had put him in, letting them fall to the floor as he kicked off his shoes. “I could have figured it out on my own. I can count, Larry.” 

“Okay.” 

“The streets are numbered, Larry! I was near 85th, this place is by 81st, what is so difficult about that? Where would I have gotten lost? I am not a child,” he pouted as he fumbled with the button and zipper of the jeans. “Modern clothing is a joke. You should go back to robes.” 

Larry’s face was red, his shoulders bouncing. 

“What? Are you going to yell at me some more?” he asked as he finally got the jeans off, and dropped to sit on the marble floor to pull them off.

“No,” Larry broke, his laughter echoing in the chamber. “God, now that you’re back safe…this is hilarious. You’re drunk. A drunk pharaoh, whining like a little kid because it’s your bedtime.” 

He stood, looked Larry dead in the eye, and dropped the strange underwear Larry had made him put on. “Hand me my clothing before I turn back into a corpse, please.” 

Larry said nothing else, just hurriedly helped him into all of his clothing and back into his sarcophagus. The lid shut, and he sighed as he waited for the usual darkness and silence, the nothingness of death to take him over. 

At least Larry wasn’t really mad, not anymore. Maybe he’d be able to take him out, to meet Inas and listen to the band together, after all. 

It was his last thought before it all went black, and he reflected in that last moment that it was rather a nice last thought to have.


End file.
